For the eight hours he spent without his Pokémon, Darren was a pallid spectre, hardly able to interact with his surroundings. Elaine told us Sableye had gone after the thief, and she would get them back for him, but it did little to improve his colour. Ducky left quickly, saying she would try to find the thief. She had connections, she said, and flying-types were good for scouting. Elaine called the police to inform them of the crime. We gave our statements to an apathetic man who gave us no hope of anything being done on their end. He even had the gall to say cases like these were common, and it was part of a trainer’s job to protect their Pokémon. As soon as his attitude was made clear, Elaine too left to talk with her mother. She might be able to do something, she said.

  We got Darren back to the Pokémon Centre, mostly due to Sunny’s steadfastness, while the rest of us were unstable Voltorbs of emotion. As for me, I battled with some of the fiercest guilt I’d ever felt. The thief was right there. We would have caught up to him. But some random flying-type had caused me to blow everything. Elaine should have gone up ahead and let me crack my head off the pavement. The distress made me more irritable than usual, and I snapped back at anyone who spoke to me. At least I had the presence of mind to distance myself from Darren before I said something to him I wouldn’t be able to take back. It didn’t feel good to leave him in the state he was either. I returned Comfey to her pokeball as I left. I did not want to feel good.

  If there was one upside to the entire disaster, it was that I resolved to be better. I needed to get over my fear. I needed to have a strong team of Pokémon. I needed to stop being the useless little girl who relied on her inexperience to excuse her flaws. It was not champion material. Even the thought made me sneer. More than ever, my ideals felt empty and unachievable. Not only was I not a notable trainer, I couldn’t even help my friend when he needed it. I had a lot of words and not much else.

  The stress forced me out into the streets. I had to move, to do something to let out my pent-up energy and take my mind off matters I couldn’t do anything about. I ended up in a library, sitting in front of a computer scanning the Webdex. My greatest shortcoming at the minute was my lack of Pokémon. I was looking for any information on potential team members. I was tempted to plan out the rest of my team there and then, against the advice of some of the top Pokémon trainers. Unless I was rich and could buy any Pokémon I wanted, relying on finding them in the wild was supposed to be a recipe for disaster. Aside from the fact that I could be unlucky and never encounter them, it was risky wanting a Pokémon purely for the species it belonged to. There was the possibility that they wouldn’t listen to my instructions, or that I would be stuck with one with no strength or ambition. Comfey briefly flitted through my mind but I rejected the unformed notion. I had given her my word, and besides, the benefits she brought outside of battle far outweighed the disadvantage of losing a member slot. There had been more than one champion throughout history who had made their name without a full team of battle-ready Pokémon.

  I spent hours in front of the screen, slowly coming to the sinking feeling that I was wasting my time. It didn’t matter how much I looked, the reality which I was trying hard not to think about was that I could afford, at most, one more Pokémon for now. Fortunately, Comfey was not a drain on my expenses, she wasn’t too picky with her food and the portions she ate were so tiny as to not make much of an impact. Flaaffy, however, required far more expensive food since her evolution. At least, expensive for me. Another Pokémon would be the limit of what I could currently handle. I had to get good results in tournaments to support a full team, and I wouldn’t be able to have a full team without making money. There was always the option to ask my parents for some, they would give me whatever I wanted, I knew that, but it would be a blow to my pride. I rested my forehead on the table beside the keyboard, struggling to hold back tears.

  Elaine found me on my way back to the Pokémon Centre. She tapped me on my shoulder, shoved a pair of pokeballs into my hands, and informed me that Sableye had managed to retrieve them. She didn’t elaborate on anything past that, and her expression was more conflicted than joyful, somewhat dulling my breath of relief. She didn’t hang around, so I had the surprisingly intimidating task of bringing my friend his Pokémon. I ran up the stairs, two at a time and burst through his door, not bothering to knock.

  “Darren! Elaine found them,” I said. He looked up from his pillow, not fully comprehending. His face changed when Auri broke out of her pokeball and almost crushed his ribs by jumping beside him on the bed. He hugged her while crying, so I let him be alone with his Pokémon and went back to my room. Sunny was lying on her back holding Coral above her and gazing despondently into her eyes.

  “Did you check on Darren?” she asked without looking at me.

  “Sableye came back with Auri and Wish,” I said. “He’s with them now.”

  She sat up so quickly, Coral squealed and latched onto her head.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “They’re back?”

  “Yep, and Auri at least looks fine. I haven’t seen Wish yet because, well, no water.”

  “Thank Arceus. Sableye brought them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the thief?”

  I hesitated, unsure how to respond.

  “I don’t know. Elaine didn’t tell me much.”

  “You mean the person who did this could still be out there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sunny cursed and threw herself back on the bed.

  “But Sableye must have seen them, so Elaine must be able to find them.”

  “She didn’t say.”

  Sunny didn’t express her anger for long, mostly because Hector and Coral did their best to soothe her, but I knew her well enough to know she was only covering it up for the moment. I let Comfey out, too. She was happy to see I wasn’t in quite a foul a mood as I was in earlier.

  We went to Darren’s room again to see everyone before finally turning in to bed. His expression was so peaceful it was hard not to feel the same. Auri was glad to see us too, though she clung to her trainer the entire time we were in the room. Wish was harder to get a read on. He was in a portable tank Darren had bought for him, and somehow managed to seem both disinterested and afraid. He hadn’t had time to bond as strongly with Darren as Auri had. I guessed that the whole ordeal hadn’t elevated him from the usual level of fear he was in.

  The next day, Darren was as nervous as I’d ever seen him. He had Auri out and even went as far as saying he would never put her in a pokeball again. I looked forward to seeing a Tyranitar following him through doorways. His nerves carried over to his battle, where he was noticeably more conservative in his directions and poorer in judgement. For his flaws, however, Auri made up twofold. She fought viciously, reminding me of my first battle against her. But more controlled than she used to be. She was on the battlefield for one reason only and that was to win. There was none of the casualness to her that sometimes came out when she was against an easy opponent. She was lucky in that she didn’t face any disadvantageous matchups, but even still, the ability to fight one against five and win was impressive.

  I didn’t stay to celebrate her victory with Darren. He understood when I said I needed to train. I went back to the library first. Researching a new team member was a somewhat futile affair, but what I was severely lacking was proper knowledge on all Pokémon. It wasn’t enough to say I hadn’t expected to face a Forretress; I needed to know everything about them, and certainly not make the blunder of forgetting Gyro Ball exists. I spent a couple of hours reading through the Webdex, beginning at Bulbasaur, the first Pokémon ever uploaded to the site. After two hours had passed, I tested myself and was upset at my results. I had always considered myself to be smart. Even the test for the trainer licence hadn’t involved more than reading through some textbooks. But good wasn’t enough anymore.

  I tried studying with pen and paper, scribbling down notes of points I felt were important. Reading back through them, I couldn’t understand them at all.

  “What’s fangs grow, chew on walls supposed to mean?” I asked aloud. Comfey made a noncommittal noise and went back to sleep.

  With my growing impatience finally overcoming my stubbornness, I did what I should have done at the beginning. I called Godfrey and practically begged for him to teach me how to study. We met outside the university.

  “I never thought I’d see it,” he said. “You, studying.”

  “Shut up,” I grumbled. “Where are we going?”

  “I’ve booked a study room for us. This way.”

  What followed was the most tedious work ever. Mind maps, bullet points, rewriting entire paragraphs. I nearly called Godfrey’s bluff. No way people did this. My pen ran out of ink before I got to Diglett.

  “If you’re making this up, I’m going to make you buy me so many pens,” I said.

  “I’ll get them for you anyway,” said Godfrey. “You’re going to need them.”

  During our study session, I received two texts. One from Elaine saying that she was leaving the city for some time. She apologised for the short notice and said that it was fun making friends with me and she hoped we’d hang out some time again. It was sad to say goodbye, and I was worried about her, considering her expression the last time we were face to face, but she was the champion after all, nothing too bad could happen to her. Moreover, the unreasonable smile her calling me a friend brought to my face made a mockery of my more negative emotions.

  The second text was from Ducky. She too was leaving. Her message was shorter, more businesslike. Besides saying farewell, she also confirmed that Joey was with his parents after all. They’d had a small family matter to take care of, but he was doing fine. I felt a small twang of guilt at completely forgetting about him, but it was superseded by the righteous indignation that, no matter what the issue, he could have sent a message himself telling us he was okay. The fault was on him if I never thought of him again.

  As the day drew on and I found myself doodling more and more on the margins, Godfrey convinced me that breaks were crucial too and that studying too long at once brought diminishing returns. He promised to help me out in the next few days if I wanted. I gave him my thanks, reticently but with goodwill, which he accepted with laughter. On my way back I stopped by the Poké Mart to buy a pokeball. It was terribly costly, but I promised myself that I would have another Pokémon by the time I entered the next tournament.